<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Echo by Nununununu</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26759674">Echo</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nununununu/pseuds/Nununununu'>Nununununu</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Thor (Movies)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Death, Character Study, Don't copy to another site, Endgame, Ghosts, Grief/Mourning, Haunting, Hopeful Ending, Kissing, M/M, Pseudo-Incest, Soul Bond, Unreliable Narrator</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 13:21:44</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,752</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26759674</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nununununu/pseuds/Nununununu</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Loki’s died quite a few times by now – ‘died’; it’s debatable – but this time seems, somehow, permanent.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Loki/Thor (Marvel)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Bring Your Own Boos 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Echo</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/roguefaerie/gifts">roguefaerie</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Starts compliant with Infinity War and the beginning of Endgame, then canon divergence (sort of) from there. Mentions non-detailed violence.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p>
<p>His eyesight gutters and then he is dead.</p>
<p>Then he’s back again. Thanos still has a massive hand around his neck; it’s all very unpleasant. Loki’s died quite a few times by now – ‘died’; it’s debatable – but this time seems, somehow, permanent.</p>
<p>He looks down at his chest for no reason he can think of.</p>
<p>“Oh.”</p>
<p>It feels like there’s something being tugged <em>out</em> of it, out from between his ribs; being drawn slowly and painfully out of him and into –</p>
<p>“<em>Thor</em>.”</p>
<p>Thor can’t hear him. Nor can Thanos. Loki can’t hear himself either, which is grating. He also can’t hear anything else. Who knew this was a side-effect of death? He doesn’t seem to be visible either – he can sense his body but not <em>see</em> it – in a way that doesn’t have anything to do with his seiðr. His seiðr –</p>
<p>Is gone. Think too much about that and Loki may start screaming. In silence. Into the silence. He’s fallen before, he’s fallen and fallen and fallen and he’s been lost in that utter crushing darkness that comes between stars, but somehow –</p>
<p>Somehow this is worse.</p>
<p>And then Thanos starts – resumes – hurting his brother. Not-brother. <em>Thor</em>.</p>
<p>Somehow this is even worse.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>--</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Thor still can’t see him. But Loki’s eyesight gutters and then, when it comes back to him, he is still dead, and Thor is sat in a putrid little room with his hand clutching his chest.</p>
<p>As if he senses Loki’s presence, he smooths his fingers out. It ends up with him just pressing his hand over his heart instead, as if he too can feel that <em>pulling</em>, that something being dragged out of Loki and into Thor.</p>
<p>Loki has a terrible feeling it might be his death. Thor’s death. He can’t explain why. He can’t explain many things, now he is dead. But he watches his brother – not-brother – waste his days on drinks and banal moving pictures that seem to relate to a box in Thor’s hand – and he watches as Thor weeps.</p>
<p>The shape of his mouth moves sometimes in Loki’s name. It moves in the shapes of other names, too, but frankly Loki doesn’t try to identify those.</p>
<p>Something has gone very wrong in Midgard. Loki seems bound to Thor in a way that would have infuriated him were he still alive. It still infuriates him now, in the distant way that many things – like the <em>silence</em> – infuriates him.</p>
<p>“Thor!” He tries screaming at his brother – not-brother – just the once. Thor scratches at his chest, but there’s no other result. It feels too ridiculous to try it again.</p>
<p>Even unseen, Loki doesn’t wish to be ridiculous, although he resists admitting this to himself.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>--</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Thor.” He tries it when Thor wakes up, after something has happened, after Thor’s mouth has shaped ‘Mother’ in his dreams.</p>
<p>“Loki?” Thor mashes his face into the pillow, groans and clutches at his chest. Loki –</p>
<p>Loki hears him, he <em>hears</em> him, <em>he is heard</em>, even as that thing being drawn out of his chest nearly tears him in two.</p>
<p>He doesn’t wait to find out whether it’s possible to tear a ghost – an echo – a memory – into two, or whatever it is he is now. He closed his eyes hard – he imagines closing his eyes hard and somehow, although he can’t see his body including his eyelids, he seems to, as his vision flickers out.</p>
<p>This world flickers out, yet –</p>
<p>“<em>Loki?!</em>”</p>
<p>At the last second before nothingness, he has the sense of Thor reaching out to him desperately, as if trying to lunge after him.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>--</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“<em>No</em>. <em>Loki –!</em>”</p>
<p>If Thor succeeds in chasing after him, Loki is certain his brother – <em>not</em>-brother! – will be dead. He would have said he welcomed that, once.</p>
<p>(He would have said it was the last thing he ever wanted, once. He would have died himself in Thor’s place instead, a thousand, thousand deaths, not just the handful – the ‘handful’ – he did. He <em>did</em> die, and he hates it)</p>
<p>“Thor,” He doesn’t try to shout this time – to call, to cry, to <em>scream</em> – but instead he whispers it. Amongst his crumpled sheets, Thor’s face is wet. He turns his forehead into the pillow, brow wrinkling further.</p>
<p>“Thor,” A strange feeling welling up in him, Loki places his hand – conceives of placing his hand; of whatever it is that is left to him that only feels like his body or the memory of his body, such as it is – <em>was</em> – without access to his magic –</p>
<p>He places his hand, just lightly, on Thor’s shoulder.</p>
<p>“Why are you so cold, brother?” Thor asks, but he is sleeping and his voice is that of the child he so long ago was. Loki –</p>
<p>It is Loki’s turn to clutch at what is left of his chest. Because he has not been conscious of the absence until now; given his heritage, he was never truly aware of it, but –</p>
<p>For the first time –</p>
<p>He feels <em>warm</em>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>--</p>
<p> </p>
<p>What a joke, to feel warm now he is dead; what a lark. Loki can think of many an individual who would find mirth in this situation he has found himself in. But he huddles closer to Thor – Thor who is sat on a disgusting couch, eating and drinking and cursing the world – and he feels warm, warm, even as Thor grumbles and throws a blanket over his shoulders, hand straying towards his chest before grabbing for more alcohol instead.</p>
<p>“You do yourself no favours,” Loki advises him and Thor blearily blinks.</p>
<p>“Loki?” Loki can hear him again, he can very faintly hear him and perhaps Thor can hear <em>him</em> likewise, and –</p>
<p>Between Thor’s blink and his own, Loki discovers that a fair amount of time has passed – or so he conjectures, as everything seems to be conjecture in death, even that which he observes of which he feels – does he truly <em>feel</em> now? Did he ever? – certain.</p>
<p>Thor stands wearing an unfamiliar form-fitting suit made from material Loki does not recognise. His hair is neater, his beard is braided; there is an unexpected wisdom that almost succeeds in hiding the sorrow in his eyes.</p>
<p>No, it’s not unexpected. Loki always knew his brother had it in him – and Thor <em>is</em> his brother, he is beginning to grow able to admit it now, as he had on occasion before his death, just as on other occasions the thought had gnawed and scalded at him incessantly.</p>
<p>For a bevy of different reasons, each more galling than the last.</p>
<p>The worst – best – of them being that Loki wanted – wants – wanted him. He looks at Thor and, even dead, still wants him now.</p>
<p>It is possible he decides this is another lie he tells himself. He’s good at that.</p>
<p>“Brother?” Thor looks up at him, lips curving in a familiar smile, and yet the wisdom leaves those eyes, replaced by shock and something almost wild.</p>
<p>It takes Loki too long to recognise it as joy – to realise that Thor, to whom jubilation always came to so easily so many times in the past – is <em>happy</em>.</p>
<p>How long has it been since he saw his brother happy?</p>
<p>“You see me?” Loki has been <em>slowly, painfully</em> gathering strands of his seiðr. Spending his time dead – and he seems to have little but time now he is dead, and yet it also seems as if he has no time at all – weaving together the faintest echo of his magic, although it’s <em>not</em> his magic also or at least not what it once was.</p>
<p>He had a long time, when he was falling and falling and falling and everything took an eternity and also only a day –</p>
<p>He’s had a long time to consider what he might do if he came to be without his magic. Not in the cheap, brief ways he was during his life, but in the deep, vast, endless way that is death.</p>
<p>Loki has never believed that anything is truly endless, at least not when it comes to him. He refuses –</p>
<p>He refuses. And so he has woven together the few slightest, smallest, most fragile strands of a new form of seiðr and Thor can see him –</p>
<p>He can see him. Loki looks down and sees an echo of himself. He can see himself –</p>
<p>“<em>Thor</em>,” He can hear himself too, just faintly.</p>
<p>“I can see you,” Thor is beaming, hands already going out, reaching eagerly – desperately – for Loki, “I can hear you, brother. You’re <em>here</em>.”</p>
<p>There is awe – gratitude – aching grief – in his voice, all things Loki would have once bristled at and had to turn his back.</p>
<p>He can’t turn his back on Thor anymore. He doesn’t want to.</p>
<p>(In truth – which he avoids as much as possible – he hasn’t wanted to for a long time. He hadn’t ever wanted to).</p>
<p>“I do seem to be,” Loki has a moment of real, genuine fear that he won’t feel his brother’s touch. That Thor won’t feel him. Which is ridiculous – and he <em>hates</em> being ridiculous – because he is dead. Of course they will not be able to feel one another.</p>
<p>Except. Except they do. Thor’s large hands close around his own, and warmth flares in Loki while Thor grits his teeth against the cold, and the bond that has been pulling and pulling so between them evens out at last.</p>
<p>Loki takes a breath in and –</p>
<p>He takes a breath. Thinks he takes a breath. Feels like he takes a breath.</p>
<p>Feels <em>Thor</em> take a breath, rather, and how it moves through his brother’s body, as if it moves through his own.</p>
<p>“Hm,” A smile faintly curving one side of his mouth, Loki starts to speculate.</p>
<p>It would have infuriated him once, the discovery that he appears to be bound to Thor (he has always been bound to Thor and he has always found many things – including many things about his brother – infuriating).</p>
<p>Instead Loki is filled with a wild sort of delight. Whether it is his own or Thor’s remains to be told.</p>
<p>“Loki – Loki, brother, you are finally returned to me and I – may I <em>please</em> –”</p>
<p>While Thor let’s go of Loki’s hands to cup his cheek and to draw him further in, Loki is the one to bridge the gap further and press his mouth to Thor’s own, as if in the instinctive attempt to take back the cold that was so long (always) with him in life. And yet –</p>
<p>And yet, as Thor’s mouth moves against his, and even as he remains dead –</p>
<p>They are both warm.</p>
<p> </p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>